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Bazzaloo Member
Crow shooting.
California has a plague of crows, some places are worse than others but in the city
they are the worst. I have hunted crows for many years and I've killed around 1,000
or more although I didn't count them all.
I've actively gone out and decoyed 'em in and busted them with a shotgun. I've sniped them from the window of our apartment in Studio City with a pellet rifle. I've shot them at long range with a centerfire rifle in the rural areas and with other means too many to list but mostly whenever an opportunity presented itself.
Especially when traveling in Ca. and interstate when I often carried an old Stevens single shot .22 cal. rifle with me set up just for the purpose. It was set up for shooting CB caps which are low powered shooting gallery type cartridges which produce very little noise.
An example is when I often stopped at a road side rest area which are common in Ca. At such places crows hang out because people leave food lying around and crows quickly learn about it. Of course, at such places you are not permitted to discharge a firearm and for obvious reasons. However, my Stevens rifle was exceptionally quiet when using CB caps and I could often shoot crows without anyone hearing me.
Of course it was always a matter of judgement and distance. I always fired from within my van which helped muffle any sound and far enough away from the nearest group of people. I had to be sure that they wouldn't hear the report and also be positioned so that no one could see what I was doing. I always departed the area soon after I shot one in case anyone got suspicious or saw the bird fall and begin to wonder what happened.
I never got caught doing it and I did it often. However, on one occasion a neighbor in our apartment building called the police and dobbed me in but I talked my way out of it because I knew that I had not been seen. Although the neighbor saw the crow getting hit they did not see me do it and before the police arrived I had disposed of the carcass in the L.A. river which was quite close to the building we lived in.
Therefore, as there were no witnesses and no carcass, all I had to do was simply deny the accusation and they finally left me alone. Apart from that encounter I never had anyone ever question what I was doing because no one knew what I was doing. I was in essence an invisible crow shooter..............the best kind.
Bazzaloo.
